Beng Choon HoMental Health Clinical Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Iowa College of Medicine and the University of Iowa College of Public Health, Iowa City, IA 52242, USAAm J Psychiatry 160:142-8. 2003

..Together with previous genetic high-risk studies of adolescent or young adult relatives, these findings indicate that premorbid MRI brain abnormalities may be of predictive value for the early identification of schizophrenia...

..Previous MRI studies have reported no significant correlations between duration of untreated initial psychosis and brain volumes but have not examined specific brain regions that may be most susceptible to neuronal damage...

..Our findings suggest that heavy cannabis use in the context of specific CNR1 genotypes may contribute to greater WM volume deficits and cognitive impairment, which could in turn increase schizophrenia risk...

Secondary prevention of schizophrenia: utility of standardized scholastic tests in early identification

Beng Choon HoDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, USASchizophr Res 106:192-9. 2008

..rs2344484-C-allele may affect NEUROG1's role in transcription regulation such that brain morphology and cognitive abilities are altered resulting in increased susceptibility to develop schizophrenia...

Progressive structural brain abnormalities and their relationship to clinical outcome: a longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging study early in schizophrenia

Beng Choon HoMental Health Clinical Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Iowa College of Medicine and the University of Iowa College of Public Health, Iowa City, IA 52242, USAAm J Psychiatry 160:142-8. 2003

..Our study supports this assertion by finding that specific genotypes of the polymorphism are associated with brain structure volumes in individuals with schizophrenia and healthy volunteers and with symptom severity in schizophrenia...

..Structural magnetic resonance studies indicate that brain abnormalities are present at onset, but longitudinal studies to assess neuroprogression have been limited by small samples and short or infrequent follow-up intervals...

Predictive values of neurocognition and negative symptoms on functional outcome in schizophrenia: a longitudinal first-episode study with 7-year follow-up

..An additional area of interest was whether the severity of negative symptoms would predict outcome independently from neurocognitive variables or whether there would be an overlap in their predictive power...

..The purpose of this study was to investigate the longitudinal course of premorbid cognitive functioning in individuals with schizophrenia by using prospective data obtained from scholastic test results...

..Because antipsychotics are prescribed for long periods for schizophrenia patients and have increasingly widespread use in other psychiatric disorders, it is imperative to determine their long-term effects on the human brain...

..The goal of this study was to investigate cerebellar dysfunction in schizophrenia by examining the clinical, cognitive, and neuroanatomic correlates of cerebellar neurologic signs in schizophrenia patients...

..This same haplotype was also associated with more severe psychotic symptoms at the time of the second scan. These data thus suggest that variation in G72 modulates the progressive brain changes that characterize schizophrenia...

Insomnia as a predictor for symptom worsening following antipsychotic withdrawal in schizophrenia

..Recurrent relapses are believed to play a role in this loss, but the relationship between relapse and structural MRI measures has not been rigorously assessed. The authors analyzed longitudinal data to examine this question...